School of Global Affairs / Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy, King’s College London

Room: K0.31 Date: Wednesday, 12/ 12/ 18 Time: 12.30-13.30

SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS

“Mindfulness”, Buddhist meditation without Buddhism, underwent an amazing growth and diffusion since its origins in the ‘70s for reducing stress responses. Its theoretical grounds appear debatable, since they focus on limited and guided meditation, neglecting the complexity and the moral dimension of Buddhist millenary experience.

Mindfulness deeply ingrained in the world of neurosciences and cognitive psychotherapies, becoming more and more detached from a person oriented psychodynamic perspective.

Its prescription, and evaluation of effectiveness, largely falls into the realm of the biological psychiatric. Mindfulness and mindfulness based cognitive therapy turned into an amazingly large market, potentially leading to narcissistic personal isolation, and passive attitude towards existential suffering and the interventions to its attenuation. These experiences appear to indicate the interest of a critical evaluation of these experiences, and their relation to the basic practice of Buddhist meditation, which is currently attracting a growing attention into the western culture.

These contents will be published in the second half of 2019 in UK by Palgrave with title: Psychotherapy, Mindfulness and Buddhist Meditation: the Answers to Stress, Unhappiness and Depression?

Prof. Giraldi Tullio’s career was mainly at the University of Trieste, Italy, where his last post was that of Full Professor of Pharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine. Retired in 2014, he has been appointed visiting professor at the King’s College, London, until 2019. Tullio’s CV, and the list of his books and publications are attached to this text; additional information, can be found at the link http://www.tulliogiraldi.it . Tullio’s last work as the authors is “Unhappyness, sadness or ‘depression’. Antidepressants and the mental disorder epidemic. T. Giraldi published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2017”. It was published in Italy in 2016 by “Il Mulino” with the title “Farmaci o Psicoterapia; Infelici, Tristi o Depressi”.